Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Mr. C

A Sci-Fi masterpiece stunningly mounted and directed . Almost beyond the imagination . . A strange adventure into the unknown ! . After being contaminated by what may or not to be radioactive mist , a good man finds himself turning smaller and steadily shedding the inches and pounds until he reaches actually minuscule proportions . A suburban husband named Scott Carey (Grant Williams) begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide and medics (William Schallert) are powerless to help him . He becomes a media darling but starts to feel humiliated and expressing cruel anger against his wife (Randy Stuart) . In his home's basement he battles lethal threats as spiders , floods or drops of water in an endless and surreal environment . At the ending terminates in a strangely and moving religious assertion of what it really means to be alive.

Universal classic of the 50s with numerous unforgettable scenes including a rousing showdown with a giant cat and a common house spider. Good performance by Grant Williams in that a strange fog causes him to dwindle becoming into unfortunate man who forces him to view the world in a diverse light than ever before. Intelligent and brooding screenplay by Richard Matheson with many memorable dialogs and including philosophical and pantheist speeches ; furthermore based on his own novel . Joseph Gershenson's impressive score with thrilling strains. Fine special effects highlight and good Art Direction by Alexander Golitzen .

This well-edited motion picture is compellingly directed by Jack Arnold in his best foray into the Sci-Fi genre. He reigns supreme as one of the greatest filmmakers of 50s science , achieving an important cult popularity with classics as "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," and its follow-up titled "Revenge of the Creature" that was a nice sequel . "Tarantula" was likewise a lot of amusement . This "The Incredible Shrinking Man" attained his greatest enduring cult popularity , it's a thought-provoking and impressive classic that's lost none of its power throughout the years . Arnold's final two genre entries were the interesting "Monster on the Campus" and the outlandish "The Space Children¨ . It's followed by an inferior Sci-Fi comedy titled ¨Incredible shrinking woman (1981)that results to be a semi-spoof , being directed by Joel Schumacher in his first movie , with Lily Tomlin , Charles Grodin and Nead Beatty. Rating : Better than average . Well catching for amazing acting, philosophical and existential argument and really peculiar transformation .

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Scott Carey (Grant Williams) has his world fall apart when he suddenly realizes that he seems to be losing too much weight. At first he and his wife (Randy Stuart) joke it off as he's not eating enough but then they realize that he's also getting smaller. The medical field is at a loss and before long Scott is just larger than a nail and finds himself in for the fight of his life.

Jack Arnold's THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is an incredibly entertaining gem that manages to get better each time I revisit it. It's funny but as a kid this here really wasn't one of my favorite Universal films but the older I get the more I appreciate the story from Richard Matheson and the fact that he and Arnold weren't afraid to make it a rather bleak subject. I certainly won't ruin the ending but anyone who has seen the movie will certainly be blown away by it.

There are all sorts of great things in this movie but for me the highlight was the battle in the film, which happens when Scott gets stuck in the basement and his wife thinks that he is dead. There are several different obstacles that Scott must overcome in the basement and the adventure that he goes on is full of wonderful action scenes as well as some terrific suspense built up by the director. The score is quite riviting and adds to the tension as our shrinking man must battle one thing after another.

The special effects for 1957 are quite excellent, although they do show their age today. With that said, the story by Matheson is just so believable that the viewer has no problem getting sucked into it and the adventure. Another major plus is that Williams is so good in his role and he helps carry you along with everything that his character goes through. Throw in the wonderful cinematography, the interesting use of science and you're really got a nice little gem that continues to get better as the years go by.

When a businessman Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is infected by a mysterious cloud of mist on a boating vacation, little does he know how his life and whole way of existing are about to change. After six months of normal life he notices he has lost a little weight and height, and that this strange loss of size is continuous. He keeps growing smaller and smaller every day, to the amazement of doctors and to the chagrin of his wife (Randy Stuart). Soon everyday things become grave dangers to him and he has to completely let go of his old way of comprehending his place in life.

The over-sized props and the creative trick photography that is used to create the illusion of shrinking must have looked absolutely stunning in the 1950s when the film first came out, because they still look impressive when I'm typing this in 2010. Carey's struggles with unexpected sources of terror like a cat, a mousetrap or a spider haven't lost any of their charm over the decades: they are still edge-of-your-seat suspense, and I'm not saying this as any kind of affirmative action in favour of old movies – I genuinely haven't been this thrilled by a movie in a long time! Besides the visual effects, the riveting music is also perfectly in tune with the thrilling style of the film.

Even though the film can easily be enjoyed as a great sci-fi suspense film, there's also a deeper, more personal level to it. Carey truly develops as a character over the course of the film. He is aware of his frustration and changing moods and scolds himself for being rude to his wife and not being able to take the new challenges bravely head-on. The sense of loneliness, created excellently with beautiful black & white cinematography and camera angles, has been said to mirror the fearful atmosphere of the Cold War and the nuclear era. This is a valid interpretation, but it's also possible to see Carey's journey as a symbol of Man's existential despair and feelings of inadequacy in life that is seemingly normal and mundane. The grandiose finale provides a majestic ending for the tale of new-found self-esteem; all my worries about a predictably tacked-on happy ending were proved unnecessary.

I wrote this review immediately after seeing the film for the first time. These words came out completely without effort and that is, to me, a sign of an honestly compelling cinematic experience. The Incredible Shrinking Man is a delight to watch, not the least bit goofy or dated like some other old sci-fi films. I recommend it for every fan of the genre, admirers of imaginative special effects and anyone interested in existential character studies.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (4 outta 5 stars) Not many of those hokey-looking old sci-fi movies from the '50s are still as effective 50 years later... but this one definitely hasn't lost any of its power. Great script written by Richard Matheson, who later went on to do much good work for "The Twilight Zone" and even today is still producing scripts for such films as "Stir of Echoes" and "What Dreams May Come". The story is fairly simple- after passing through a mysterious cloud on the ocean, our hero Scott (Grant Williams) discovers that his clothes seem to start feeling looser. More time passes and he discovers that he is now shorter than his wife. Day after day, he becomes smaller and smaller until he becomes so small that an ordinary housecat becomes a terrifying threat to his very life. The special effects might seem unconvincing to modern eyes... but the otherwise high-quality of the editing and direction make the action scenes as effective and suspenseful as anything you likely to see spewed out by today's CGI factories. I was totally unprepared for the ending of this film... you'd never see a movie end this way nowadays... but you never too many of them end this way back in the '50s either! A classic!

I finally caught up with Jack Arnold's most highly-regarded piece of science fiction, and I have to say that I agree it's his most accomplished work.

True, the plot isn't terribly original (how about THE DEVIL-DOLL [1936], which I watched again right after, and DR. CYCLOPS [1940], for starters, not to mention the 'little people' of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN [1935]?) but none of the others quite touched upon the psychology of its admittedly fantastic situation, let alone treat it with such intelligence, sensitivity and, ultimately, persuasion. Legendary author Richard Matheson is to be congratulated for his truly excellent script, as should be Arnold for putting his ideas on the screen with such vividness and imagination. Special mention must go too to Grant Williams for his fine performance; Jack Arnold seemed to think it was worthy of an Oscar and I can't say I disagree!

It was interesting to see that the title character's peculiar affliction effected him gradually and not all at once; the fact that this was caused by exposure to radiation must have struck a note of panic amid contemporary anxiety-ridden audiences (this was the Cold War era, after all) and, in any case, it was inevitable that such 'monstrous' radiation effects (as seen mutating various forms of animal life on the screens of 1950s America) would not spare man himself in the long run. An episode featuring sideshow midgets, with whom The Shrinking Man seems to identify for a little while, is quite moving - as is his jealous possessiveness of his wife who he suspects wants to abandon him.

Despite the low budget, the film's special effects are terrific and the second half of the story basically resolves itself into a struggle for survival for our unfortunate hero as he has to battle various elements (the family cat, a spider, water, the re-dimension of objects around him, his own weakness due to hunger) which a normal person would more or less take for granted.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN - though I must say that Matheson's bleak yet strangely affecting ending blew me away, giving the film an intellectual resonance lacking in most films of its type and period.